Category: Thoughts & quotes from Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. & Susan Hawkins

A: The attachments can be to either content or context, as well as to intended or hoped-for results. To undo a difficult positionality, it may be necessary to disassemble it and then surrender its elements. The payoff that is holding an attachment in place may be that it provides a feeling of security or pleasure; the pride of being ‘right’; comfort or satisfaction; loyalty to some group, family, or tradition; avoidance of the fear of the unknown, etc.
When belief systems are examined, they turn out to be based on presumptions that are prevalent in society, such as right versus wrong or good versus bad. For instance, “I have to have chocolate ice cream (content) “and then I’ll be happy” (context) is based on another positionality, that the source of happiness is outside oneself and has to be ‘gotten’ (in overall context). All these propositions indicate a series of dependencies (e.g., the
Buddha’s Law of Dependent Contingencies or Dependent Origination), and when they are surrendered, the source of happiness is found to be in the joy of existence itself, in this very moment and, beyond that, in the source of one’s existence—God.

Attachments are illusions. They can be surrendered out of one’s love for God, which inspires the willingness to let go of that which is comfortably familiar.

I: Reality and Subjectivity: Ch.20, Perspectives, Pg. 352-353

 

That which is of incredible beauty has the tendency to throw you back into the Self. You can walk into the world’s great cathedrals that have been there for a thousand years; incredible music, incense, and beauty shine forth through the stained glass windows; it’s not your religion, but the reverence, the collective reverence, the worship of God expressing itself as this incredible beauty, has an uplifting experience.

One then ascribes that experience through the out-thereness of the cathedral. No, the cathedral gives you the experience of that which is always present at all times within yourself, but you only allow yourself this experience under these conditions. That which you are experiencing is the presence of the Divine within. Incredible beauty, then, unleashes the dam in which that which is love, that which is sacred, shines forth, and that radiance is what makes you feel like crying. That incredible beauty brings a lump to your throat. Incredible beauty as it rises makes the hair on the back of your head stand up and then as it gets even higher, you can’t stop crying. Is that so?

Beyond Illusion: Exploring Perception, Ego, and Meditation on the Path to Truth, Ch. 2, pg. 73-74

This book contains the complete transcriptions of the May and June 2002 lectures by Dr. Hawkins. Available for purchase today!

[Q]: “Where does emotion fit in spiritual growth or spiritual values? It seems that every time it’s spoken of, they’re not serving the spiritual life well.”

We see on the Scale of Consciousness that the emotion depends on the level of integrity and that emotion itself is not necessarily detrimental. We were talking about negative emotions which calibrate below 200: hatred, anger, self-pity, guilt, remorse. But as you get over 200, now emotion becomes a positive asset. The commitment to integrity is a certain emotionality. It’s not emotionality the way most people think of it, but it’s a certain space of commitment. You can do it when you clean up the kitchen in the morning. You can commit to “getting this place absolutely clean the way I want it.” Eventually you see as the emotion goes up, it calibrates higher and higher. Probably the most important emotion…in spiritual work is that of love, but beyond that, devotion.

What makes any spiritual understanding comprehensible, and work, is one’s devotion to the truth. So, the pathway of heart and pathway of mind are one and the same. They end up one and the same. Because the pathway of Advaita, let’s say, Advaita, pathway of No-mind, the pathway of Zen, is really based on a profound and intense dedication. One-pointedness of mind is the expression of an intense dedication, a love that is not in the world of ordinary emotionality.

The love, the devotion to achieve one-pointedness of mind, is extreme and intense. To leave everything in the world, fixate only on that which is straight ahead of you, with no deviance, takes an intense dedication, and that is devotion.

New! Beyond Illusion: Exploring Perception, Ego, and Meditation on the Path to Truth, pg. 130-131

This book contains the transcriptions from the May and June 2002 lectures.

Just know that you are the field out of which arises the content of the field, because how do you know there’s anything in the field? You can only know by knowing it. That which has the capacity of knowingness has the capacity for recognition, see. You see, it goes back then to that’s what meditation is. So, contemplation, then, is walking about in the world in a meditative state in which one’s focus is on the source out of which the entire phenomena is arising. Outside of time, outside of conceptualization, outside of worryingness, outside of giving it names. There’s awareness of awareness, but there’s no awareness of an “I” being aware. That’s a mentation that you add on top of it.

from the June 2002 lecture, disk 2, point 00:30:00

and also:

New! Beyond Illusion: Exploring Perception, Ego, and Meditation on the Path to Truth, pg. 122

Publishing date is April 29th! You can pre-order today!